With the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks set to meet in Super Bowl XLIX on Feb. 1 in Arizona, the New England and Northwest Washington Synods are ready to compete, too! 

 

While the Pats and Hawks are playing for football's ultimate prize, our synods are challenging each other to see who can raise the most money for ELCA World Hunger between now and the final whistle on Super Sunday. 

 

The best part is: You can help, and it's super easy! Just click here to visit the New England Synod website, and find your favorite synod's helmet. Look for the "Donate" button below the helmet, and you're off! You have from now until the end of the game on Feb. 1 to donate, and you can always donate more than once!

 

One in every eight people in the world are chronically hungry, and cannot lead active daily lives. ELCA World Hunger's mission is to help hungry people everywhere, and to connect with congregations and companion churches throughout the world to identify the places where need is most urgent. You can help that mission by donating today!

 

Click here to donate!

June 5-6, 2015

MassMutual Center

Springfield, MA

The 2015 New England Synod Assembly will be held at the Mass Mutual Center in Springfield, MA on Friday, June 5, through Saturday, June 6. Our theme for 2015 is "What's New in New England."

 

We are a Synod of Experimentation - in 2014, our assembly established this synod to be a place of graceful experimentation, innovation and creativity in order to further the mission to which God in Christ has called us. Congregation councils and other congregational leadership teams were challenged to spend 20 percent of their time focused on innovation and experimentation and encouraged to share the results of this focus (both successes and failures) with others throughout the synod. 

 

During this past year, clergy and lay leaders from around the synod have shared their ideas and experiences on the "Try Something New in New England" Facebook group. On Saturday we'll gather some of those contributors together for panel discussions and conversation around their experiments in ministry, worship, and mission. 

 

We'll be joined by keynote speaker, Rev. Molly Phinney Baskette, Pastor of First Church Somerville UCC, and author of "Real Good Church: How our church came back from the dead, and yours can too." She will be speaking on Saturday morning and will be available for book signing after her presentation. 

 

The non-voting visitor registration fee includes all access to worship, keynotes, panel discussions and workshops. A great deal for visitors! We encourage congregations to send non-voting visitors as well as voting members. The ELCA representative will be the Rev. Michael Stadie, Program Director, Lutheran Disaster Response. This year's Assembly will also include the election of representatives for 2016 ELCA Churchwide Assembly.

 

For more information, click here to visit the Synod's event page.

The New England Synod Council has asked a task force on compensation guidelines to gather input from both lay and rostered leaders. The following dates are open to anyone from any of our congregations. Please contact the Dean from your conference for a copy of the document to be discussed. Ask your pastor about this, if you are not sure who the Dean is for your congregation.

 

We want lots of lay leadership participation in these discussions. This proposal is a work in progress throughout the entire synod.

 

Some points to stress:

1. This proposal is merely a jumping point for discussion.

2. It is important that both rostered and lay leaders participate in these meetings.

3. Please encourage one another and share the schedule and documents broadly.

 

Date - Conference - Location - Time

Jan. 21 - Northeast Mass. - Redeemer, Woburn - 7 p.m.

Jan. 22 - Eastern Connecticut Rivers - Bethany, Cromwell - 7 p.m.

Jan. 24 - Greater Hartford - Concordia, Manchester - 11 a.m.

If you or your spouse receive health benefits from Portico Benefit Services, it's important that you know about some changes that have been made to the Mayo Clinic Health Assessment. 

The EmbodyHealth web portal where ELCA-Primary health plan members have gone to take their health assessment has been closed and replaced by the new Healthy Living portal. Members should now visit www.PorticoBenefits.org/HealthyLiving to access the new portal, from where they can launch into the health assessment. (If you use the old elcaforwellness.org link, it will redirect to the myPortico main page, so please update your bookmarks!)

The Healthy Living portal also has several new features:

• The annual Mayo Clinic Health Assessment, which became available on Jan. 1
• Access to tools where members can track their health activities, and a reward program where ELCA-Primary members can report activities and earn wellness dollars
• Personalized recommendations
• Continued access to A-Z health information backed by the expertise of 2,000+ Mayo Clinic doctors and scientists

In July 2014, we created a Facebook group with the goal of giving our congregations and leaders a hub to discuss experimentation. Following up on a challenge by Bishop Hazelwood at the 2014 Synod Assembly to try new things in ministry, the group has grown rapidly in both numbers and participation, and is a near-daily hive of activity where great stories of experimentation can be found. 

Here's just a sample:

"For the last couple of years, one of our folks has brought her entire neighborhood to our early Christmas Eve service (before/after a neighborhood open house)," writes Pastor Jeff Stalley (First Lutheran - Ellington, Conn.). "It's about 40 people. So we decided to have an "all ages, impromptu" choir for that service. The choir's rehearsal was 1/2 hour before the service so they all could join in. Approximately, 20 or so did. Caveat: our choir had rehearsed their part previously, and the part our guests sang was relatively easy....but that was a smart way to do it. Link."

NEW: Special Trip to Lutherans in Honduras: Jan. 27 - Feb. 3, 2015

For at least the past 10 years, the New England Synod has been working with the Episcopal Church in Honduras. Now we are ready to send a mission trip to Lutherans in Honduras. This first trip will be to Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Santa Cruz de Yojoa, a town in Central Honduras. Part of our task will be to begin building a security wall around the church to help keep children safe from the streets. We will also be teaching children Bible stories, meeting with local lay and pastoral leaders, and perhaps bringing Holy Communion to the sick.

 

April 20 - 28, 2015 Yuscaran, Honduras

Leader: Pastor Dave Rinas

Estimated Costs: $795 plus airfare (approx. $850) from Boston to Tegucigalpa. 

After flying in to the Capital we will take a one-hour bus ride to our living quarters, which are located on the mountains overlooking the town of Yuscaran. Accommodations are more rustic; we sleep in cabins in bunk beds. While pillows, sheets and blankets are provided, we suggest you bring lightweight sleeping bags and your own pillow. Solar showers provide warm showers at the end of each day. Gravity flush toilets are located outside of the sleeping areas. The work in Yuscaran has centered on three projects, and each person finds their own place in one or more of these projects:

1. Construction and dedication of the church building through cement and rebar work. We have nearly completed this project.
2. Spontaneous after school children's VBS - crafts, games & singing in the town square.
3. Women's sewing clinic. We have brought sewing machines and provided an opportunity for women (though a few men come) to sew. We leave the machines and they are used in a nearby church as a resource to the community.

Contact Pr. Dave Rinas for more details or visit www.sdumas.net.

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